


Paintings

by sleepallthetime



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: Drabble, I am not a fic writer, M/M, Probably shouldn't be taken seriously, References to Shakespeare, Romantic Friendship, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepallthetime/pseuds/sleepallthetime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bushy never finished the painting of Christ</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paintings

Bushy once told his king that he saw history as a piece of art. Neither can admit to really remembering the intricacies of the conversation, but both know that it took place during some summer day, the sky bluer and the grass greener on their hill than on any spot in England.

Richard said it went like this. He said that Bushy had been full of sack since the night before, if not longer, and that the effects of it were stained across his face. He retold that he slurred his speech and was too slow to wave the fat bees from his plate. At this point, the listening crowd, the usual gang of friends, Green, Scrope, unsure Aumerle, would laugh, and Richard gave his Bushy a small look of no ill-feeling meant and carried on. Over them, that day, the sun shone higher than heaven and yellower than yolk, and Bushy told his king, inspired by the sun's colour, of how one makes one's own paint from egg, and calls it tempera. He said it is an historic craft, passed down through hundreds of years. Well, Bushy does like to tell stories. Our Bushy tells all tales when fed and well watered. He told dear Richard that one may as well see all of time in a stroke of paint. It holds its colour, holds fast its shape and form, does not melt, does not move or uplift or come away. He said that it is as unchangeable as history. One day, Bushy said, the world will see ours through a portal of paint. How grand can Bushy be. How, as an artist, he thinks himself God, to show the future a past that was, or else, a past the artist sees. 

Bushy told it differently. He was often embarrassed by the tone his Majesty takes, of, even in jest, showing the nobleman to be above his station. He was sure, whatever he said, was not meant so. He told it that the wine was flowing freely through both their stomachs, and that they welcomed the bees as friends to laze away and could not eat a morsel more and so it was kingly of each, a line met with some humour from each listener, to let even flies share a plate. He said that, having looked at how the sun shone on his Majesty's wine, how the colour struck to him a memory of the wet of red paint, and the powders and yolk which made it. He told their group, meeting each eye, of Green and Scroop and waiting Aumerle, that he told the king that paint is forever. Once struck upon the page it cannot be lifted off. And how, your Majesty, he says to Richard, who listens with a smile made of time for Bushy, that he does not show to many else, that how like history that paint becomes. He said that paintings are important, for even a child can read them, even a lowly man, and any man. That, because of this, they will last longer than our words, and longer than our histories. The artist is not God, your Majesty, but an honest teller of what he saw.

And if Green and Scroop and Aumerle drunk more sack on sack, and turned their attentions from king and honest teller, then Richard would look at Bushy and give him an honest smile, his eyes telling, and Bushy would give back a kingly one, worthy of royalty.

 

The three listeners were not blind to the fact that, of the three of them, Richard loved his Bushy more. There was always a kind word, or smile, a glance in his eye, a touch of fingers saying unspoken words for Bushy that did not transcend to them. In the end, they would probably not wish this any other way. They wore each other well. And unlike other men at court, Bushy seemed to respect his place. Not at Richard's side, his hand, his council. He did not try to force himself there for ulterior means. The three thought that this is why Richard loved Bushy the most. He was the only one of them that his Majesty allowed to his chambers to talk, or to drink. There was honesty there.

Bushy held his tongue well, even under wine. He knew that Richard loved his country, loved his God. He knew these things as the whole of court did. But he knew the rest too. He knew that, though some whispers say otherwise, Richard did love his wife. She was the Queen of England, after all. He knew that Richard attended his duties as well as the King saw fit. He knew that Richard was his sovereign, chosen by the divine powers, and knew that he would follow him anywhere, as if blind to all else. It was because of this that Richard loved him more. He seemed to see more than the rest do. They saw a crown to be respected, the top of the ladder, the achievements of birth. Having this different vision, an honest vision, Richard wished Bushy to paint for him.

Bushy would often remember the first painting he made for Richard. A mess, he later thought. He had been overwhelmed that day. It was the first time he saw his Majesty's chambers, royal, expensive, with colours of every shade. With chairs and hearth and pillars and walls all painted matte with gold. There were paintings, and plate, and dressers and mirrors all around, and on one wall, a painting of Christ, the shining halo brighter than the sun around his holy head. Bushy lost himself in that painting, eyes locked with those of Christ, overpowered. Richard lead him away. There had been an easel set up, a table of all he would need. The king took his place on a chair a little way from the artist and waited, patience regal. Bushy remembered that painting as shaky, as unlike the face of Richard, ruined by the splendour of the setting around him, by the form he was trying to immortalise. Despite all of Bushy's protests, Richard kept the painting, though where Bushy knew not.

It wasn't until the fourth painting Richard commissioned from Bushy that the artist was more pleased with his interpretation. In the painting, the king sat upon his throne, with the crown dabbed with gold. A hogs-hair brush, the smallest strokes of leaf, glinting on his majesty's royal head. In all fairness, it was a good likeness. Bushy was very pleased with it, of the shadows on Richard's robes, the arch of his throat, the colours. However, on stepping back from the painting, his heart had sunk into his stomach. The proportions looked out of place. A warped history on the canvas. The king looked but a boy on his throne. Too small in his chair, too alone in his empty halls. He exclaimed that he wished to burn it, was offended by his own hand, his own eyes for painting the insult. Bushy told the king he meant no ill, no venom, said he would dispose of it.

Richard, calm king, touched his shoulder. His majesty kissed the nobleman's forehead, with love and honesty, so much so that later, the two would each tell the story of how, once, Bushy had cried over his own work.

 

Bushy painted Richard many times, before he died. He painted him in robes of many colours, under trees and under canopes, with his wife, with animals, with his sceptre and orb and all manor of kingly things. He grew to know the king's eyes, his ears, his hands. He knew the shapes and lines of his body better than his own. The colour of his skin better than any hue he knew before. Bushy dreamt of them. He dreamt of every line of Richard's form to be drawn with his own brush. Every curve of muscle, every dip of flesh. The green of his eyes, the pink of his lips. He drowned in sleep with every flooding detail. He created each colour on the palette by reflex. Each detail was exact. 

Still, Richard kissed his head. Still, he touched and favoured his affection. Still, Bushy knew that he was missing something, unseeing something he should have been telling, telling everyone, for years, for lifetimes.

It was another summer afternoon, when the heat drove their friends to leave for some cool stone cavern, to drink sack and ale until their bloods cooled, that Bushy realised. His Majesty and he had stayed a while yet, under some English tree on English ground, shaded from the heat. Bushy was reclining, watching Richard, trying to spy something unseen. The king knew. He did not speak. His Majesty was half reclining too, regal in his pose, the apple of his subject's near eye. He spoke his troubles, tongue quiet. “I have not heard of Bolingbroke of late. Is unlike my cousin to be so far, from my gaze and be so quiet so that, I should not hear even a word of he.” Bushy watched him, watched the unnatural creasing on Richard's face, that he knew came from thoughts of worry or too much woe. They laid heavy in the king's heart, like paint settled in brush-water, irremovable from the purity before. “Think of it not, my leige, he will soon write. The Duke of Hereford ne'er does leave you long.”

Richard still looked troubled. Bushy wished to paint over the lines that made his face bear the marks of it. Erase it all. “I fear his absence will not be held well, for summer plots do oft heat up to Hell. Come,” Richard said gently, sitting up. As he sat, the golden orb, the sun, did swallow up his Majesty's head, so that all that Bushy saw was a great halo. The image burned to his head so easily, so all at once, that he was frozen, the picture marked onto his teller's brain. He knew then, if he had ever doubt before, that Richard was divine. That he was everything. He knew what he had not been painting.

The painting of Christ was left unfinished.


End file.
